VuPoint Magic Wand Portable Scanner

My best friend bought her husband a really awesome Christmas gift this year: a wand scanner.

Never heard of one? Neither had I!

I planned to scan my old photographs on our office copier, but her wand scanner is WAY simpler!

Similar to ironing, you press the wand over your photo completely. Plug the wand into a USB connector to your computer to retrieve the scanned photo. Crop the edges with your photo editor, save, and you're done!

Polaroid of my younger sister & me in Hawaii.

What do you think? Pretty cool!

She purchased hers on HSN. They're about $100. Ebates offers 3.0% cash back for HSN.com purchases! Join now & get a bonus $5 cash back.

You can also find a similar model at Amazon for about $90.

Colorful, Linen Handbags and Accessories | Spartina 449

I am so jealous of my friend Em's Christmas present - a linen Spartina449 wallet from a friend who has great taste (a photographer...)

$35 Firelight Snap Wallet at Spartina449.com

Ooh, it made with my two favorite colors: purple & fuchsia!

I have my eye on their eyeglass cases and this luggage tag that's marked down from $16.99 to $10.00

$10 Mary Fields Luggage Tag at Spartina449.com

Check out the website.  I guarantee you will spend at least 15 minutes looking around!

For local Charlottesville residents: according to the website, The Chimney Corner is one of their retailers. 

Christmas at the Averys

Dish soap & Bisquick not pictured (but added!)

All the effort we made couponing these past few months made for some amazing gifts for our family!

We made up a box for my husband's mother and three siblings.  While we didn't keep track of how much all this cost, we estimate $15 to $20 for the four boxes we made.  A little unconventional, but I think all were impressed!

Christmas Eve

It was a great Christmas this year! We managed to budget, coupon and make Christmas look so easy!

 Doesn't this tree look great?  If you were in our living room, you would know that this tree has been dead for weeks :)  We forgot to cut the trunk...  This is the only time the lights were turned on for fear of fire.  Oh well!  My girls are young; this small detail didn't affect their Christmas experience in the least.



I hope you had a very Merry Christmas!

PS - the tree was hauled out of my living room today, so I am very happy.

My Coupon Binder

We started an informal Coupon Club at work.   It's great, because we all have different ideas on how to get this things started.  My professional couponer friend carries a large binder with business card holders inside so she can see all the coupons lined up.  She has indexes to divide them in sections like "Breakfast" or "Health & Beauty".

My freind searched everywhere and told me that Office Depot had them in stock.  10 sleeves for $3.99.  I wish I had a coupon, but since I'm a newbie, I'm not going to worry about the price right now.  I saw these things are available online for $2+, but I didn't want to wait!


BEFORE

 







AFTER



Recently, we took this binder with us on our first grocery trip, and my husband was so impressed at how easy it was to use.  I organized my binder so that each sleeve is organized by the aisle location at our primary store, Harris Teeter.  The first is canned vegetables & condiments, next is pastas and prepared dinner, etc...

Ereina